Corporate boards and ownership structure as antecedents of corporate governance disclosure in Saudi Arabian publicly listed corporations

Al-Bassam, W. M., Ntim, C. G., Opong, K. K. and Downs, Y. (2015) Corporate boards and ownership structure as antecedents of corporate governance disclosure in Saudi Arabian publicly listed corporations. Business and Society, 57(2), pp. 335-377. (doi: 10.1177/0007650315610611)

Abstract

This study investigate whether and to what extent publicly listed corporations voluntarily comply with and disclose recommended good corporate governance (CG) practices, and distinctively examine whether the observed cross-sectional differences in such CG disclosures can be explained by ownership and board mechanisms with specific focus on Saudi Arabia. Our results suggest that corporations with larger boards, a big-four auditor, higher government ownership, a CG committee and higher institutional ownership disclose considerably more than those that are not. By contrast, we find that an increase in block ownership significantly reduces CG disclosure. Our results are generally robust to a number of econometric models that control for different types of disclosure indices, firm-specific characteristics and firm-level fixed-effects. Our results have important implications for policy-makers, practitioners and regulatory authorities, especially those in developing countries across the globe.

• Item Type: Articles
• Status: Published
• Refereed: Yes
• Glasgow Author(s) Enlighten ID: Opong, Professor Kwaku and Ntim, Professor Collins
• Authors: Al-Bassam, W. M., Ntim, C. G., Opong, K. K., and Downs, Y.
• College/School: College of Social Sciences > Adam Smith Business School > Accounting and Finance
• Journal Name: Business and Society
• Publisher: Sage Publications
• ISSN: 0007-6503
• ISSN (Online): 1552-4205
• Published Online: 16 October 2015
• Copyright Holders: Copyright © 2015 The Authors
• First Published: First published in Business and Society 57(2):335-377
• Publisher Policy: Reproduced under a Creative Commons License